Frokat
For Riot Games, connecting the professional and amateur scenes has always been a priority. It’s not enough to just call the highest possible Solo Queue “Challenger” and let the esports organizations do the branding and scouting. The aim is much trickier: ensuring an environment where a highly-skilled pro player and an (also high-skilled) amateur can play together on the same page is a deceptively difficult task.
Different regions and different branches of Riot Games have tried multiple ways to ensure such an environment. The biggest and the most successful example of such a project is the Chinese mega-server.
The mega server
League of Legends’ popularity in China can not be underestimated: for comparison’s sake, the entirety of the Europe West server has around 3 million unique accounts. A pretty impressive number, for sure, as EUW is one of the oldest and the biggest servers in the game. Still, it is completely dwarfed by LoL’s popularity in China: that region has 115 million unique accounts, with 75 million unique monthly players, requiring no less than 27 servers to ensure the player base’s ability to enjoy the gameplay without hiccups and delays given such an incredible scale.
With such an amount of unique server-shards, the question of splintering the player base stings. Even given its absolute necessity as there’s no server infrastructure in the world powerful enough to host hundreds of millions of players at the same time.
So Tencent, the League of Legends publisher on the territory in China, among other things, came up with a solution that we now know as the Chinese Megaserver. Regarded as the most competitive League of Legends environment, it is only available to the players who reach the rank of Diamond II or higher on any other server. Since the server is open only to those who reach the top 0.8% percentile, it goes without saying that you need to be pretty good to end up there.
It’s not uncommon to witness star matchups when playing (or, for us mere mortals, looking at the pros play there) on the Chinese Super Server. Its reputation as the highest top of LoL Solo Queue earned the attention of many-a pro, including the star players from other servers such as ShowMaker, Chovy, Perkz, and others. If you want to boot camp without the actual boot camp, Chinese Super Server is the way to go – provided you’re good enough.
Introducing Champion’s Queue!
Inspired by their parent company’s example, Riot Games have unveiled a project with a similar aim, but a very different, more proactive approach. While the Super Server is nothing more but a platform for the very best – nothing wrong about that, of course – Riot’s newest project goes beyond being a simple matchmaking tool on a standalone server. Meet the North American Champion’s Queue!
Taking inspiration from other disciplines’ leagues and matchmaking tools, the Champion’s Queue aims to elevate the level of competition above a simple Ranked Solo Queue match. Hosted on a tournament realm, just like the LCS, LEC, LPL, and LCK leagues we all know and love, the platform is designed to bridge the gap between high-level amateur play and esports tournaments.
Only the brightest of the NA’s pro league are guaranteed a spot, though – but if you’re exceptionally skilled, you have a shot at qualifying for the special Queue via a public application system. Only Masters and above, though!
All that seems to be in line with China’s super server, however, there’s just one little detail to boost the competitive drive even further – Champion’s Queue will feature a prize pool of $400 000! The award will be distributed based on the players’ standings at the end of the split, with an additional gauntlet at the end of the year for bonus prizes.
But there’s also one thing more important than money when it comes to League – and it’s toxicity (or, rather, the lack of it). Riot Games pledge to support the new queue by constantly monitoring the competitive integrity of the Queue, as well as requiring the players to have a spotless toxicity record – or, at least, proof of reformation. Go Tyler1.
While North America seems to be the first region to enjoy the benefits of this queue, we could see Riot Games expand on the project for other servers, as well. A queue of such sort would be a wonderful addition and a great solution to bridge the gap between Europe West and Europe Nordic and East servers, for example. Furthermore, it’s even possible that other Riot Games’ titles will soon enjoy such a queue – keep hoping, Valorant players!